So you’ve decided to try an escape room in your classroom! The thought of implementing an escape room can be intimidating, but if done correctly, it can be the highlight of your students’ year in Math class. If you’ve never done an escape room in your classroom before, here are some essential tips to remember.

But first…

What is a Classroom Escape Room and How Does It Work?

A classroom escape room is a series of obstacles or challenges that students complete as a team. They involve review of a specific concept but in an incredibly engaging way. The goal of the escape room is to solve all the obstacles along with your team, as quickly as possible. Escape rooms are high-energy and high-motivation and your students will review a HUGE amount of information in the span of about one hour (without even realizing it).

Here is an example of the materials from the Lost In The Woods Escape Room. In this one, the teacher reads the back story first. Students are “lost in the woods” and must overcome the obstacles in order to find their way back home. The obstacles involve building a fire, finding shelter, finding food, crossing an old bridge, and more.

Each obstacle contains materials such as puzzles, codes, and other activities. In this escape room, there is a multiplication focus, so all the obstacles involve multiplication.

Once students work as a team to complete each task and overcome all six obstacles, they have completed the escape room and made it home!

Escape Rooms have the potential to be a huge highlight for your students. You might see students jumping up and down in excitement. You might see students who are typically reluctant getting excited about math. You almost certainly will have your students begging you to do another one.

But there are some tips that will increase your chances of success with an escape room. Here they are!

Solve the Obstacles Yourself First

As you prepare the obstacles, be sure that you solve each one yourself first. Your understanding of each obstacle should be excellent, as you will be busy helping groups during the actual escape room. The more comfortable you are with each obstacle, the more you can help your class during the actual event (rather than trying to figure everything out at that time). Some of them require some deep thinking, so the more prepared you are, the better.

Choose Too Easy Rather Than Too Difficult

If you are trying to choose between two escape rooms, always choose the one that you KNOW your students can be successful at. Even if the content is review for your students, they will be highly engaged with the challenge of the obstacles and puzzles. Remember – your goal during an escape room is student engagement, first and foremost. This is not a time to be struggling with content or to be learning new things.

Pre-Teach/Review

An escape room activity can be a busy time for the teacher, because the groups may have a lot of questions when they get the new task. You can help alleviate this by taking a few minutes before you begin to pre-teach/review any concepts or instructions you think they might struggle with.

Have Students Choose Roles – Reader, Writer, Runner

I like to have three specific roles for team members – reader, writer, and runner. If you have more than three students in a group, some can share a role. The reader is the person who will read the description and task on each new envelope they get. The writer is the person who will write the answers that the team comes up with. The runner is the person who takes the envelope back to the teacher and gets a new one.

Be Excited!

Always remember – your excitement is contagious! If you show excitement during an escape room, your students will naturally feed off of it. I cannot stress this enough! Make a big deal out of it when your students come to get a new envelope! Make a big deal out of the fact that they have almost completed a challenge! Encourage and motivate the groups as you circulate! This is one of the big keys to success.

Keep the Struggle Productive

There’s a fine line between productive struggle and unproductive struggle. A team that is showing productive struggle may be struggling to figure something out, but they are highly engaged.

They KNOW that solving the obstacle is possible and are working hard to do it.

No intervention is necessary.

A team that is showing unproductive struggle has crossed into a place where you don’t want them. Maybe they feel overwhelmed. Maybe they’re feeling like the obstacle is too difficult. Maybe they’re feeling like they are way behind the other groups. They may have stopped working on the challenge because it doesn’t feel possible to tackle.

This is where you must intervene.

How can you get this group back on track to a place of productive struggle?

Help them!

Show them how to do an obstacle, and give them some tips that make them feel like you’re sharing a big secret with them! (Ssshhhh! Don’t tell the other teams!)  – it’s not going to hurt anything and it feels like progress is being made once more. This feeling of making progress is powerful; now they are ready to tackle the next problem on their own and are back to a place of productive struggle.

Your goal is to keep students in productive struggle. I promise, everyone will have more fun.

Provide Supports if Necessary

Sometimes you might want to do an escape room where you know the content might be a bit too difficult. This is where you could provide some supports. For example, if you are doing the Lost in the Woods Multiplication Escape Room with a group of Grade 3’s who don’t know all their multiplication facts yet, you could provide a multiplication chart as a support. If you are doing the Stranded Fraction Escape Room with a group who you think may struggle with the content, you could provide some fraction strips to help. Your goal is to ensure that your students love this activity. You want them jumping for joy because they are so excited! If supports are necessary for this to happen, then be sure to use them.

Ready to Try An Escape Room?

If you are ready to tackle an escape room in your classroom, view them all HERE. You’ll find escape rooms for all kinds of concepts including addition/subtraction, fractions, multiplication, and more! Each escape room centers around a theme – Lost in the Desert, Egyptian Escape, Stranded on an Island, Finding Rudolph, and much more.

View all escape rooms here.

I hope these tips help you feel more confident as you try your first classroom escape room. You will learn so much from doing your first one – what went well, how you’ll change it for next time, and what your students need to be successful. If you try one, be sure to let me know how it went in the comments below. I always love to hear from you!

The post So You’ve Decided to Try A Classroom Escape Room: How to Guarantee Success appeared first on Shelley Gray.

Does the thought of trying to teach 25 Halloween-crazed kids the week before Halloween make you want to curl up under your covers and call in a sub? Have no fear, because you really CAN add Halloween fun into your lessons without sacrificing curriculum content!

Here are a couple of Halloween math activities that will engage even your most reluctant students and make your students forget they are even “doing math!”

The Halloween Hotel: a Halloween Math Project for Grades 3-4

“The Halloween Hotel” is a real-life math project where students will complete nine different tasks, each one focusing on math skills in a fun Halloween context. Your students won’t even realize that they are reinforcing basic math skills like area, perimeter, addition, subtraction, multiplication, time, and more! Although this project was designed for Grades 3-4, your 5th graders will have a ghostly good time completing it!

Halloween Escape Room

It’s Halloween night and you are trick or treating with all of your best friends. Your dog Sparky is also tagging along for the night. Suddenly Sparky starts barking and runs down the street as fast as he can. But he doesn’t stop there. ”Oh no,” you say to your friends. “He’s heading right for the old Monroe place.” Before you can catch him, Sparky has jumped through a broken window and run right into the old abandoned house at the end of your street. Mrs. Monroe used to live in the house but it’s been empty now for ten years. The kids at school say the house is haunted, but you don’t believe them. You call Sparky, but he’s not coming. You’re going to have to go in after him.

Are you ready for the challenge

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If you’re ready to take Halloween math to a whole new level, this is the resource for you! Your students are going to LOVE this Halloween-themed escape room-style activity where they will crack codes and work together as a team, ultimately overcoming the obstacles and saving their dog from the old abandoned house.

Your students will be completing six different challenges (or obstacles) in order to rescue the dog and get out of the house. These challenges will be completed as a small group of about three to four people in order to encourage teamwork and cooperation.

My students LOVED this activity. One boy said, “This is the most fun I have had all year!” We used it on the morning of Halloween, and I loved that it was on theme, but the students were still learning.

When a team has solved a challenge, one member will come to you with the answer and get the next envelope.

The goal is for each group to complete the escape room, but it is motivating to have teams compete against each other to see who can solve it first.

We had so much fun completing this during our Halloween party. We turned the lights off and they used flashlights to solve the problems.

This escape room does not involve expensive locks or lockboxes. It is easy to set up, and once it is prepared it will be ready to go for years to come! Each obstacle will be placed inside a manila envelope.

Helpful Links

Here are the direct links to the Halloween math activities mentioned in this post:

Halloween Hotel Math Project

Halloween Escape Room

The post Fun Halloween Activities that Will Make Your Students Forget It’s Math Class appeared first on Shelley Gray.

TRAPPED IN THE SCHOOL FOR SUMMER: END OF THE YEAR ESCAPE ROOM

best-suited to Grades 2-5

If you’ve never done an escape room in your classroom before, this is a great one to start with! It’s incredibly easy to prepare (I know that time is scarce right now!) and your students are going to love it! Here’s the lowdown:

Back Story: 

It’s the last day of school and you just have one thing left to do – return your library books. You head to the library, but while you are there, you get sidetracked reading your favorite superhero comic book. “I’ll just read a bit longer,” you say to yourself. Finally you decide to head back to your classroom. But when you open the door, you can’t see a thing. Everything is pitch black and the school is empty. Will you be trapped inside the school all summer long?

Benefits:

• less skill-focused than some of my other escape rooms; more focused on puzzle-solving fun
• includes a modified version (addition/subtraction rather than multiplication) for two of the activities so that younger students can complete it.
• quick to prep
• quick and easy to implement (will take about 30 minutes for students to finish)

FIND IT:

• Trapped in the School Escape Room on TpT
• End of the Year Bundle on TpT (includes this resource and two others)

END OF THE YEAR MEMORY BOOK/LAPBOOK

best-suited to Grades 2-4

Students will reflect on the past year, and write about some of their most unforgettable memories. This lapbook serves as a great keepsake for years to come! Students can infuse their own individual creativity in order to make their own lapbook unique.

Each student will require one letter size file folder and a copy of the printables from this package. There is a balance between foldables and simple cut and paste reflections so that students will remain engaged. The prompts are designed to be open-ended to allow students to individualize their answers.

Benefits:

• makes a fantastic keepsake of the year
• allows for individuality
• simple for students to put together

FIND IT:

• End of the Year Memory Book
• End of the Year Bundle on TpT (includes this resource and two others)

END OF THE YEAR AWARDS

best-suited to Grades 2-4

Benefits:

• space for a handwritten note – this adds a personal touch and is so much more important and memorable than a generic message
• focuses on character traits and growth mindset
• will be a treasured keepsake from the year in your classroom
• simple design – well-suited to many different grade levels
• over 70 different awards available – something for everyone

FIND IT:

• End of the Year Awards
• End of the Year Bundle on TpT (includes this resource and two others)

Thank you for giving everything you have to your students this year. The end of the year is chaotic, but it’s also a reason to celebrate the year’s achievements! Have a fantastic end of the year and a restful summer.

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